


The Storm

by DashFlintceschi



Category: Bring Me The Horizon, You Me At Six
Genre: Josh is a witch, M/M, loads of drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-25
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-14 17:05:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 15,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2199915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DashFlintceschi/pseuds/DashFlintceschi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Josh moves from Surrey after his boyfriend finds out he's a witch, and blabs to their friends. He never would have guessed that asking a prefect for help on his first day would lead to this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This used to be Sean Smith/Ian Watkins, but I rewrote it for obvious reasons. Because it was originally set in Pontypridd/Merthyr Tydfil, I'll need you to read this with a little more suspension of disbelief than usual. Surrey and Sheffield are three or four hours drive apart, but for the sake of this story, they're only half an hour or so apart. Also, pretend Josh's birthday is in December, because that's easier than trying to work out a way that they'd be at school during the first week of August.

I wandered around aimlessly, my eyes trained on the map and information on the light turquoise sheet in my hand. Finally, I decided that the paper wasn’t telling me any more than it already had, and I needed help from someone. I looked up and scanned the faces of the people passing me, my eyes finally resting on two guys standing across the hall, leaning against the wall and watching everyone who passed by. The only reason I chose them, I realized as I weaved my way over to them, was because they were both wearing prefect’s sashes, which meant they were more likely to help me.

When I finally got to them, I tapped one on the shoulder. He turned to face me, and jumped violently, a look of shock on his face, but I just put that down to my hair, which stuck up all over the place, showing off my undercut.

“Um... Hi...” I mumbled, and the guy laughed slightly, but he had obviously noticed the sheet of paper in my hand, because he put a reassuring hand on my shoulder and gave me a sympathetic smile.

“Let me guess, you’re new, and lost?” He asked, and I nodded, biting my lip as I gave him a sheepish smile. “Right then, let’s have a look and see where you’re going, eh?” He asked with a smile, gently tugging the sheet from my hand and scanning it, before lightly gripping my forearm and leading me down the hall.

I had just moved from Surrey to Sheffield, meaning I had to leave good old Heathside High, and start over again at Stocksbridge High instead. It was kind of my own fault, though. I was a witch. Yeah, laugh and tell me I’m an idiot if you like, but it’s the truth. And my ex-boyfriend found out, accidentally blurted it out to our friends. So now, my parents decided they were ‘bored of the scenery’ and moved us here.

Ah, Dan, my best friend turned boyfriend turned ex-boyfriend. It was a mutual thing, and he was planning on coming to visit occasionally, to see if we could go back to being best friends as easily as we thought we could.

So now, I’m following this gorgeous guy – Oli, he said his name was – down a hall that I’m assuming leads to my locker, using the hand that he didn’t have a hold on to smooth my hoodie down every minute or so, just to make sure nothing about me suddenly screamed ‘Witch!’

If I weren’t a witch, I think I’d try to get his attention, if he swung that way, but the last thing he needed was a seventeen-year-old witch dragging him down. He was clearly a good kid, probably smart, too. This guy was going places. The only place I was going was the dole queue, or a coven or something.

Finally, we came to a stop, and he turned to me with a triumphant grin.

“Here we go, that’s your locker, and your first class is directly across the hall. I’m in the room next door, and we’re in the same room for second period, so just wait for me after, and we’ll walk together, yeah?” He rattled all this off in one breath, still with that grin on his face. I simply nodded and smiled back, then turned to the locker he’d pointed to, fishing the keys out of my pocket.

The rest of the morning was pretty boring. History first, then English with Oli and his friend Lee, the other prefect from before. When break rolled around, they both insisted that I hang out with them and some friends of theirs.

It turned out that ‘hanging out with them’ was actually lurking at the back of the building, keeping a lookout while one of their friends, Matt, spent the entire of break chain-smoking. He was a cool guy, they all were, but all I could think of was the damage it was doing to my lungs every time he accidentally blew smoke in my face.

“So, where you from, and what brings you to this shithole?” The other Matt asked with a grin. He was a terrifying guy, towering over the rest of us, his school shirt barely managing to contain the bulging muscles of his arms and stubble on his chin that made him look at least twenty-three. He had a heart of gold, though, which he never failed to show, especially when his boyfriend, Jordan, was wrapped around him like he was now.

I forced a smile in return, and spouted the reason my parents, my sister Elissa, and I had all agreed on.

“I’m from Weybridge in Surrey, we moved here ‘cause my dad got a new job, the new house is a lot closer to it than the old one was.” I lied through my teeth, still managing to keep the fake smile on my face. I couldn’t help but fidget, though, smoothing out my hoodie, then playing with the hem of it.

They ate up the lie, though, asking about Surrey and wondering if I knew some friends of theirs that had lived near me. I didn’t know them, thankfully. I knew it was only a matter of time, though, until word of my unnaturalness reached their friends; then they themselves would know. Hopefully, I would have found out if I could trust them with the secret by then, though, so it wouldn’t matter.

One thing that worried me, though, was the way Matt and Jordan kept looking between Oli and me, a glint in their eyes and a knowing smile on their faces as they whispered conspiratorially to each other. I had a feeling they were going to try to set us up, and as much as I wished it could happen, I knew it never could.


	2. Chapter 2

A month later, I was starting to worry. Lately, my magic had been flaring, getting stronger and coming out in random bursts at the worst times. Our chemistry teacher was still trying to figure out how a beaker of water Oli and I were supposed to be boiling somehow ended up turning into a geyser, soaking the ceiling and most of the class.

The guys didn’t seem to think much of this, joking about the school’s supplies being shit and how epic it looked. My Dad told me that the flares were normal, that it happened to every Witch when they were approaching their 18th birthday. I only ever used my powers for trivial things, anyway, like turning the lights on or off if I couldn’t be bothered getting up, or temporarily disfiguring Elissa if she was annoying me. I just wished I could control the flares.

I was currently at Matt’s house with the guys. They all called him Vegan, for reasons that were yet to be explained to me, and I had picked up the habit myself. It was Friday, and Dan was coming down, since we’d finally settled in enough and we still had to try this ‘back to being friends’ thing.

I’d just gotten a text from him, telling me he was just leaving. Unfortunately, when I’d gotten the text, I’d been rummaging in Vegan’s fridge, and my phone was on the living room table, resulting in Lee reading the text, to ‘shut up that stupid fucking ringtone’.

So now, I was trying to explain exactly _why_ my ex-boyfriend was coming down to stay for the weekend, without giving away the whole Witch thing.

“We were best friends before we started dating, and we’re trying to be friends again,” I tried to defend, but this seemed to confuse them more.

“So? If you started dating, then doesn’t that mean that you couldn’t make being friends work? If dating each other didn’t work, maybe you should just cut all ties with him,” Oli countered, trying to make sense of it.

“You do realize that four of the people around us are in relationships with each other, and they were best friends before that, right?” I asked, motioning to Vegan and Jordan; then glancing at Lee as he made himself more comfortable in Matt’s lap.

“That’s different, though, they’re meant to be together, you and this Dan guy obviously weren’t,” Oli argued, just as my phone chimed again.

“Whatever, Dan’s outside my house, so I’m going,” I muttered, heading for the door. I wasn’t angry, I just didn’t want to think about why he was so determined to argue about it.

The weekend was mostly uneventful. Dan and I discovered that we could easily slip back into being friends, and spent the whole time catching up, interspersed with Dan apologising for blabbing and laughing when I had random flares.

On Monday morning, I had to drag myself to school, despite being kept up all night by constant flares making my stuff bounce around the room. The worst part was, my baggy ‘hide my freakishness’ hoodie was in the wash, so I had to settle for a baggy shirt instead, praying that no one noticed me more than usual.

Oli had been calling and texting all weekend, thinking I was mad at him, but I hadn’t answered, being too busy with Dan, so the second I rounded the corner to our usual spot behind the school, he pounced on me, hugging me tightly.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t realize how touchy the subject was!” He pleaded into my hair, and I quickly pushed him away. I could feel another flare building up, and I wanted him away before he noticed.

“Relax! I’m not mad, never was, I just didn’t want to leave Dan standing around outside for too long,” I explained with a smile, and he sighed in relief. He moved forward to hug me again, but I ducked under his arm, going over to where the others were, watching us with slight amusement.

I joined them in the little circle they’d formed, and a few seconds later, I felt Oli’s arms around me as he rested his chin on my shoulder and his front pressed against my back.

“Why won’t you hug me?” He whined, and I could just tell he was pouting. He continued talking before I got a chance to reply, though. “Is it ‘cause all that weird stuff’s been going on around you lately? ‘Cause I don’t mind, I don’t think you’re weird or anything,” He insisted, and I felt myself pale considerably as the others gave him confused looks.

“The weird stuff didn’t have anything to do with him, did it? I haven’t noticed...” Matt asked, looking me up and down as the others agreed.

“I hadn’t noticed either, but when I didn’t see him all weekend, and right now, it only got windy when he got here, I can feel it, like there’s pressure building up or something. Not that it matters,” Oli informed them, then started listing all the other weird occurrences that my flairs had caused, and I completely spazzed.

“It matters to me! I happen to be really self-conscious about it, actually, so thanks very much for pointing it out!” I snarled, cutting him off mid-sentence and storming away. Once again, I wasn’t angry, I just needed to cover my tracks.

I spent the whole day ignoring Oli, in an attempt to guilt him into never mentioning my flares again, and it seemed to work. The downside, though, was that I felt guilty the whole day, wondering if I should just come out and tell him.

I lost the privilege of making that decision, though, when we were walking towards the main gate at the end of the day. I was grudgingly talking to Oli, though not as much as I usually did. I completely froze, causing Vegan and Lee to walk into my back. Standing at the gate, grinning like fools, were Dan and our three best friends.

Oh shit.


	3. Chapter 3

I was brought back from my mad panic by fingers clicking in front of my face. They belonged to Oli, who was squinting at me in concern.  
“You OK, J? Who are they?” He asked, following my stare.

Before I got a chance to answer, Max came bouncing over and dragged me into a hug.

“Joshy! If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’ve been hiding from us!” He boomed, and I laughed awkwardly, rubbing my neck as he released me. “You were? What, you thought we’d hate you ‘cause of your... Thing? Of course not! You’re our boy!” He announced, and I groaned, rubbing my face in despair as I realised what he just dropped me in, five curious stares burning my back.

“Thanks for that, dickhead,” I growled, glaring at him as I shoved past, storming over to where Dan was standing.

Naturally, the six of them followed me, Max apologising now that he realised his mistake, the others talking over each other to make me tell them. I tried quieting them a few times, promising to tell them later while silently glad that we were the only ones that hung around.

As the minutes passed, and my attempts to placate them failed, my high emotions prompted a flair.

“Would you all just _shut up!_ ” I screamed, the last two words punctuated with two bursts of pure magic, causing all of them to fly backwards.

“What the fuck was that?!” Lee gasped as he struggled back to his feet. I looked around sheepishly, sending out a silent, unnoticeable scan of each of them to make sure I hadn’t hurt any of them.

“That... Um... How about we all go back to mine?” I mumbled, realising that I was now completely fucked.

They all silently followed me, half of them awkward, half of them confused, while I frantically tried to figure out how the hell I was going to dig my way out of this hole.

When we walked into my house, I took one look at Elissa, who was lounging on the couch, watching us with confusion, and sighed.

“Looks like we’re moving again,” I explained, and she groaned.

“Those damned flairs again?” She asked, and I nodded. She sighed, and got up, coming over to us and looking at those who didn’t know. “He’s a witch, I’m a witch, so are our parents, that lot know, now so do you, do us all a favour and keep your damn mouths closed, yeah?” She fired out, then turned around and went upstairs, leaving me with the five of them gaping at me, while Dan and the others sniggered into their hands.

Nicholls seemed to recover fastest, and he looked me up and down.

“Care to prove it?” He challenged, and Matt sniggered, remembering that he’d said the exact same thing when he’d found out.

I thought about it for a moment, thinking on how best to prove it, then decided to use the same thing I did to prove it to the others. I went into the kitchen and got a glass of water. As before, I got Dan to hold it, then glanced up at them.

“As you’ve noticed, my magic isn’t 100% stable right now, so this might have more power behind it than it should.” I warned, then looked back to the glass.

I positioned my hands over the mouth of the glass, then concentrated. Slowly, the water rose up out of the glass, floating above it in a gyrating blob. I held it there for a minute, then lowered it back into the glass. Unfortunately, just as the blob was about to touch the bottom of the glass, a flair burst out without warning, causing the glass to shatter as the blob of water exploded.

I instantly felt sharp pains all down the left side of my face as Dan whined in pain. I opened my eyes and rushed to his side, noticing that he was cradling his right hand, the one that held the glass. I gently cupped his hand to inspect it, and he looked up at me, gasping in shock.

“Josh, y-your face...” He stammered, but I shook my head.

“It’s fine, let me see your hand.” I insisted, gently pulling it towards me. I used my magic to numb his hand slightly, then started gently pulling out the shards of glass that had embedded themselves in his palm and fingers.

When I was done, I got the first-aid box, and cleaned it out, then bandaged it.

“Sorry, you know I can’t heal it. I wouldn’t even if I could, with these fucking flairs. I’ll keep the numbing charm on it until it heals, so that’ll stop the pain. Just come find me when it heals and I’ll take it off, ok?” I told him softly, and he nodded, hugging me in thanks before gently gripping my chin, turning my head to get a good look at the left side.

“That looks pretty fucked. Sit down and I’ll clean it out,” he insisted, and I knew there was no point in arguing.

In the end, it turned out I had four gashes on my face, which looked more like claw-marks than anything. They stretched all the way from my hairline, over my eyelid, which I had thankfully closed at just the right second, arched across my cheek and curved down under my jaw.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t use the numbing charm on myself, so Dan’s self-imposed task of disinfecting them was full of me swearing, wincing and flinching away from his hand.

When he was done, I glanced around at the others, who were all watching me with concern.

“I’m fine, really, just a few scratches, it looks worse than it is. How are you guys doing with the whole ‘magic is real’ thing?” I asked, glancing between Vegan and Jordan. They all smiled at me.

“I think it’s quite wicked, actually. Your secret’s safe with us, don’t worry,” Lee promised, the others nodding in agreement. I sighed in relief. I was safe for now.

This shit has got to stop happening.


	4. Chapter 4

The weeks slowly inched past, taking us closer to my eighteenth birthday, and hopefully, the end of the flairs. Now that the others knew my secret, handling them became easier. Before, my flairs would make me panic, and the high level of emotion would cause more, higher charged flairs shortly after, but now, when my pen exploded, or my drinks would spray out of cups, we would just laugh, keeping my stress levels low enough that we were guaranteed a few hours of peace before it happened again.

In the middle of October, I began noticing that Oli watched me a lot. If we were in a group, he’d watch my reactions to what others were saying, and if he or I were talking, his eyes would practically burn with intensity as he listened or watched for my reaction to his words.

It was after this observation that my flairs got worse again. His constant watching was making me nervous, and that nervous energy went straight to my magic, causing full strength flairs every few minutes. It got so bad, I began to consider applying for home study until my birthday.

It came to a head in the first week of December. We were round the back of the building again, Nicholls smoking more than usual as we were about to take our mid-year exams, so we were all stressed out. Lee mumbled a comment that I misheard, and suddenly everyone was on edge.

The two of us started arguing, and out the corner of my eye, I noticed Oli watching me the whole time. Suddenly, my temper turned on him.

“Why the fuck are you staring at me?! Would you just stop it? It’s creeping me out!” Before I realised, my magic had joined in, pinning him to the wall behind him.

Without my conscious consent, my magic focused on his throat, slowly and painfully strangling him. He started gasping for breath, wheezing out apologies so I’d put him down.

“I don’t want an apology! I want an explanation! You’ve been staring at me for over a month and I want to know why!” I snarled, unknowingly tightening my magic around his throat. I was so angry that I didn’t even notice his face starting to change colour from my grip.

“I’ll explain! I swear I’ll explain, just let me go, please!” He rasped, and my magic let him go. He slumped to the ground, massaging his throat as he gasped for breath.

I watched him with confusion, then glanced around at the others, who were all looking between the two of us in shock and horror.

“I wasn’t holding him that tight, was I?” I asked, and Oli laughed hoarsely as the others gaped at me.

“His face was going purple!” Jordan informed me, and my jaw dropped.

“Shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t...” I trailed off, biting my lip in guilt.

“Your magic did it on its own?” Oli asked, and I nodded, suddenly feeling a bit scared.

“I’m not sure I like the sinister turn these flares have taken,” I whimpered, and the others nodded in agreement.

We spent most of the afternoon in an almost shell-shocked silence. None of us really knew what to say, and I think the others were a little scared of setting my magic off again. It wasn’t until we were walking home that I realised Oli never gave me his explanation for his staring. I brought it up, and he suggested going to his so he could.

Half an hour later, I was sat on his bed, watching as he paced in front of me, trying to decide what he was going to say. He finally spun round to look at me, bit his lip then blurted it out.

“I fancy you. Really bad. I think I might even be falling in love with you,” it all came out in a rush, and I had to replay it in my head, deciphering it before I knew what he said.

“Oh,” it was stupid, but it was the only thing in my mind, and it slipped out.

I sat and stared at him blankly, while he stood chewing on his bottom lip, waiting for some kind of reaction from me.

“I, um, I have to go,” I mumbled, shooting out the door and down the stairs before he even realised what I said. It was pathetic and cowardly, but to be honest, I was feeling rather cowardly just then.

A quick trip by my house and a phone call later, I was on the bus to Surrey. I fully intended to hide out at Dan’s for the whole weekend, and he’s assured me I was welcome.

I obviously hadn’t taken it into account that other people had phones, and that the bus I was on stopped right outside Vegan’s house. I started swearing under my breath when it did stop there, and Vegan, Lee and Jordan got on, making a straight beeline for me.

Jordan sat down beside me, Vegan and Lee sitting down in front, immediately swivelling round to look at me. I gulped and slid down in my seat, waiting for them to set about me. I thought Vegan might even hit me. Instead, Lee gave me a sympathetic look and sighed.

“He’s really torn up, you know. He thinks you hate him,” he told me softly, and my already monumental guilt grew, bringing tears to my eyes.

“I don’t hate him. I just... God, I don’t even know,” I sighed, running my hands through my hair.

“Do you love him? Or even fancy him? I think he’d happily settle for that at this point,” Jordan asked, and I sighed.

“I don’t know. I did, when I first met him, but I pushed that right down. I thought with the whole...” I paused and looked around the busy bus. I gave them a pointed glance, and they seemed to get it, so I continued.  
“With... That, he’d never give me a chance, so I pushed it away, and now I don’t know how I feel,” I finished softly, and now all of them were giving me sympathetic looks.

Vegan’s curiosity got the best of him, and he broke the tension.

“Where’re you going, anyway?” He asked, and I laughed softly.

“I was planning on hiding at Dan’s for the whole weekend...” I told them, and they laughed with me.

“How about now? You going to spend the weekend away trying to drag those feelings back out? See what they’ve turned into?” Jordan prompted, and I nodded.

“Yeah, I just hope that if I don’t feel like that anymore, we can get past it. I don’t want to lose him as a friend because we can’t be around each other anymore,” I told them softly, and Vegan reached over the back of his seat to hug me, rubbing my back in reassurance.

“Of course you won’t lose him. You’re his best friend, he won’t let himself push you away,” he assured me softly, and I nodded, smiling gratefully.

They all gave me reassurances, then took turns hugging me before getting off the bus and walking back towards Vegan’s house. I really hoped they were right.


	5. Chapter 5

Dan and Matt were waiting at the bus stop for me when I got there, which was lucky. Apparently, the sudden wintry weather was worse in Surrey, so when I jumped down from the last step of the bus, they were there to catch me when I landed on a patch of ice and my feet skidded out from under me.

The second I had my footing back, and the thrill of panic left me, I flung my arms around Matt’s neck, clinging to him.

“What the fuck do I do?” I moaned pathetically in his ear, and he rubbed my back sympathetically.

As we walked (read; shuffled cautiously while clinging to each other) back to Dan’s, I explained the whole thing in detail, including the conversation on the bus. When we got there, the others were waiting in Dan’s living room for us.

I felt my heart warm at this. I had expected Dan to let me camp on his bedroom floor for a few nights, but I hadn’t expected any of them to venture out in that horrific weather just to make me feel better. It was then that I realised just how much they cared, and I found myself loving them more in return.

The four of them seemed to have a silent conversation with their eyes for a few seconds; then Dan shook his head almost imperceptibly and Max grinned at me.

“You went over on your arse at the bus stop, didn’t you?” He asked with a laugh, and I grinned, wrapping my arms around Dan’s neck.

“I would’ve, but my knight in shining armour saved me!” I gasped dramatically, pretending to swoon.

I knew they were doing it on purpose, to distract me from the whole fiasco with Oli, but as I watched them all laughing and taking the piss out of each other for my benefit, I found that I didn’t really care.

About an hour later, I waited until they’d quieted a little; then looked around at them all.

“So, what am I supposed to do about this, then?” I asked, and they all sighed.

“Honestly, I’ve got no fucking clue.” Chris admitted, and the others looked a bit thoughtful.

“Well, you said earlier that you used to like him, right?” Matt asked, pausing so I could nod in confirmation.

“Yeah, but I pushed it down and forgot about it, ‘cause I reckoned I didn’t have a chance,” I added, and he nodded.

“Have you tried pulling it back up, to see if it’s still there, or if it’s grown at all?” He asked, and I shrugged.

We sat in silence as I thought about it, digging deep inside myself for the feelings that used to be there. I brought up a mental image of Oli in my head, focusing on how I felt about him, and suddenly it was there, all those feelings I’d had for him months ago, only now they were ten times stronger.

I gasped at the intensity of them, and the others glanced at me with concern. I gulped and nodded, looking each of them in the eye in turn.

“Oh yeah, it’s still there, only so much stronger.” I mumbled, and Matt smiled encouragingly.

“Then go back to Sheffield and tell him that. We can see you any old weekend,” he insisted as I opened my mouth to argue. I nodded in defeat and was about to get up and say my goodbyes, when Dan’s dad walked in.

“Sorry, but nobody’s going anywhere. I just tried to go out myself, and we’re officially snowed in,” he announced, and we all looked at the window. While we’d been arsing about and talking, the light snowfall had turned into a blizzard, the snow falling so much that I couldn’t even see the street. I sighed, running my hand through my hair. Just my bloody luck.

It turned out that the phones and internet were down, even though the TV and radio were both working fine, so even though we had some entertainment, I had no way of letting my mum know that I was alright, and stuck here, and even more importantly, I had no way of telling Oli that I felt the same way.

Monday morning dawned bright and white with even more snow, and I groaned in despair. I had been hoping it would clear up just long enough for me to get back to Sheffield, but luck had obviously abandoned me. The six of us spent the whole morning wandering around the house, mobiles held above our heads in an attempt to get even one bar of signal.

Every now and then one of us would pass the landline in the hall, pick up the receiver and listen for a few seconds, before shaking his head and replacing it. Finally, Chris managed to get two bars just after lunch, and immediately handed it to me.

I knew I had to be quick, especially since to get the signal, I had to stand half way up the stairs, balancing on one leg as I leaned dangerously far over the banister, trying hard not to think about the abyss below me and how much it would hurt if I fell.

I quickly dialled my own number, hoping someone answered before the signal vanished. Thankfully, my mum answered after only a ring and a half, gasping “Josh?!” Down the line as she did.

“Yeah, it’s me. Don’t worry, I got to Dan’s before the blizzard hit. We’re stuck here, but we’re safe,” I assured her, feeling guilty even though it wasn’t my fault.

Once she calmed down and I assured her a few more times, I decided to ask a favour.

“Listen, mum. I need you to get Elissa to find Oli and tell him that I don’t hate him, ok? Tell him that I feel the same way and I’ll- whenever I get back, I’ll talk to him then,” I told her, and then the signal went. If only I’d known the signal was cutting in and out at the end...


	6. Chapter 6

Finally, the snow cleared on Friday, a whole seven days after it had trapped us. I had run out of clean clothes on Sunday, and none of the others had a change of clothes with them to start with. Between that and the boiler deciding to pack in on Monday, the four of us were fairly disgruntled, dishevelled and starting to smell slightly when we finally bid Dan and his parents goodbye.

The snow hadn’t gotten anywhere as bad in Sheffield, and it was only eight o’clock when I got back, so I had a quick shower then headed to school, excited to see Oli again, since Elissa had told me in passing as she was leaving that she’d passed on my message.

When I got there, I went straight to the back of the school, where I knew they’d be. Sure enough, they were there, huddled together for warmth, but when I called out to them in greeting, four of them glared at me, and Oli refused to take his eyes off the ground.

I drew level with them, and looked at them all in confusion, focusing on Oli, who still wouldn’t look at me.

“What’s going on? Elissa said she gave you my message.” I asked, addressing the top of Oli’s head. It was Vegan who answered me, though, with a harsh shove to my shoulder.

“Oh, he got your message. Loud and clear. Couldn’t have been a little nicer about it? Or at least man enough to say it to his face,” he spat, and my face scrunched in confusion.

“What? But I didn’t...” I trailed off, and he scoffed.

“Elissa said your mum was quoting you verbatim. That you ‘do hate him, you don’t feel the same way and you’ll never speak to him again.’ I thought you had more of a heart than that,” he snarled, and I flinched, even as my mind whirled in its attempt to make sense of what was going on.

Suddenly, it dawned on me.

“It was the phone!” I exclaimed, and even Oli looked up to look at me in confusion. I explained quickly about the blizzard and the shitty signal, how it must have started cutting out at the end.

When I was done, Oli was finally looking at me, hope shining in his eyes.

“So, what did you really say?” He asked softly, and I smiled at him.

“I said I _don’t_ hate you, I _do_ feel the same way, and that I’d talk to you when I managed to get back,” I told him softly, and he gave me a heart-stopping smile.

“We’ll just... Give you guys a few minutes,” Lee mumbled, hooking his arm through Nicholls’ and leading the others away.

We stood in silence for a few minutes, Oli smiling at me while I looked around and awkwardly scuffed my shoe against the concrete beneath my feet. The only other relationship I’d ever had was Dan, and that was just a mutual ‘wanna try dating for a while? Sure why not,’ kind of thing. This was different, I had no idea what to do here.

I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I didn’t notice Oli moving closer. He slid his finger under my chin, prompting me to look up at him. I jumped at the contact, but complied anyway. He smiled softly and stroked my cold cheek with the back of his gloved hand.

“Will you be my boyfriend?” He asked softly, and I gave a grin of my own.

“Of course I will,” I replied equally softly, and he returned my grin, leaning in to press his lips chastely against mine.

We walked hand in hand to our first class, our leisurely pace belying how late we were. When we walked in, the others noticed our smiles and linked hands; and instantly started grinning at us and giving us thumbs up from behind the teacher, who was glaring at us.

“And where have you two been?” She snarled, and I smiled innocently, then looked her right in the eyes.  
“We were livin’ la Vida Loca,” I replied as innocently and sincerely as I could, struggling to keep a straight face as the whole class howled with laughter. The teacher stared blankly at me for a minute, then made a ‘fair enough’ gesture, telling us to sit down before continuing the lesson.

As usual, I doodled instead of taking notes. That’s what Jordan and Lee were for. I got bored half way through, and started glancing around in an attempt to find something to occupy me.

I grinned as a thought came to me, and I tore a sheet of paper from my note pad, tearing it into smaller bits. I rolled each of them into little balls, then lined them up on my desk. I could see Oli watching me curiously from beside me, and grinned more as I leaned down and flicked the first ball of paper. It did exactly what I wanted it to. Jordan was sitting right in front of me, and it flew forward, bouncing off the nape of his neck, landing in his hood.

The next one went the same way, only bouncing off his neck and then getting stuck in his hair. I choked back a laugh and decided that it was my new target. Right when I was about to fire the next one, a paper ball flew past me from somewhere else, and I glance over, grinning when I saw Oli in the same stance as me, his own paper balls lined up in front of him.

I giggled softly, then glanced forward, sniggering when I saw Lee had Oli’s paper ball stuck in his hair. We made it a competition, who could fire the most balls before our targets noticed.

It ended up a draw. The lesson ended, and we both scored seventeen. We had to smother our laughter when they stood up, the movement dislodging the paper, which cascaded to the floor like little waterfalls. They both spun round, mock glaring at us as we leaned against each other to hold ourselves up when the laughter took over.

“You two had a productive lesson, then?” Lee asked with a laugh, and I lost control, doubling over as the giggles poured out.

“Eh, at least they’re not pining over each other anymore.” Jordan conceded with a shrug, and they watched us with amusement as we slowly calmed down.

As we walked to the common room to hide from the cold during our free period, I noticed people pointing at me and whispering. I was never one to care about that sort of thing. Well, when you’re a flamboyant loud mouth, you have to not care, so I just ignored them and kept walking.

We were almost at the common room door, when someone finally approached me. A tiny little Year Seven boy crept over to me, his mates lurking in the background.

“Um, is it true that you were going out with Emma Barnes, and she caught you shagging a guy, so she did that to your face, and you haven’t been in all week ‘cause her brother put you in the hospital?” He asked me in a rush, and I stared at him in bewilderment.

“Who the fuck is Emma Barnes?” I asked, and he turned back to his mates.

“See! I told you it wasn’t fucking true!” He yelled, then turned back to me.  
“But you are shagging a bloke though? You let him stick his cock up your arse?” He asked, and I gaped at him.

“You’re eleven,” I stated dumbly. He looked at me like I was stupid, motioning impatiently for his answer. “Yeah, I’m gay. I ‘let guys stick their cocks up my arse’,” I replied, still a little dumbfounded.

He seemed happy with that answer, and left with his friends.

“He’s _eleven_. I was still playing with Lego when I was his age,” I mumbled, and the others laughed.

“Yeah, they’ve turned into right little shits since we were that age, eh?” Vegan chuckled, hooking his arm with mine and leading me into the common room.


	7. Chapter 7

Later that day, I was coming out of my last class, History, which I had by myself, while Oli was in French and the others were in Geography. I was heading down to the cafeteria to meet the others, when eight or nine guys were suddenly blocking my way.

“My little brother says you’re a homo,” The guy at the front stated, and I rolled my eyes.

“Yeah, I’m gay, what’s it to you?” I sneered, and he moved forward until he was right in my face.

“There’s no place for filthy faggots like you around here,” he spat, then my stomach exploded in pain as he rammed his huge fist into it.

The next half an hour is just a blur of pain as his friends joined in, beating me until I blacked out, and probably for a while after too. The next thing I can clearly remember is a gentle pair of hands, one rubbing my back as the other stroked my blood streaked hair from my face.

“Josh? Baby, can you hear me?” I knew that voice. My eyes fluttered open, and Oli’s blurry figure came into my vision, crouching next to me. I groaned weakly in reply as the pain came back, so much worse than I remembered. I heard him say something about an ambulance, then the pain became too much and I slipped into darkness again.

When I woke up next, I was in a soft bed, the pain reduced to a dull ache, and I could feel two hands gripping mine as tightly as they dared. I opened my eyes and glanced around. I was in a hospital, the curtain pulled around to shield me from the other inhabitants of the ward. My eyes slid over the people at my bedside. Oli and Dan were sitting either side of me, their hands the one’s I’d felt gripping mine. Every single one of my friends was with them, my parents and Elissa sitting next to Dan’s parents at the end of the bed.

They were all having quiet conversations amongst themselves, so they didn’t notice I was awake until I cleared my throat and struggled to sit up a bit further. Oli and Dan rushed to help me sit up, while my mum rushed to the top of the bed so she could hug me until I flinched and whined in pain.

She instantly let me go, stepping back and wringing her hands as she fussed, asking if I was alright, did I need anything, did I need a doctor. I held up a hand to silence her, and smiled as much as I could.

“I’m fine, just... Be a little more careful when you hug me, yeah?” I laughed, and she smiled in relief. Oli squeezed my hand, and I turned to him, smiling softly when I saw the worry lingering in his eyes.

“What happened? We came looking for you when you didn’t show up, and we just found you lying in this bloody heap...” He trailed off, his eyes filling with tears as he remembered.

I explained what happened, filling in the blanks about the conversation with the Year Seven for everyone else.

“So it was a hate crime? They did this because you’re gay?” Dan’s mum asked, her eyebrows furrowing. I nodded and she scoffed. “That’s ridiculous! Even if it was any business of theirs, what right do they have to punish you for something you can’t help?” She ranted, and I nodded in agreement, looking pointedly at Dan. He still hadn’t gotten up the guts to tell his parents he was gay, some theory that they would feel different if it was their own son keeping him too scared to come out.

Dan ignored the look I sent his way, until the bell rang, signalling the end of visiting hours. When they all got up to leave, Dan kissed my cheek, then Oli kissed my lips. Instead of getting jealous like most guys would, like I expected him to, Oli simply smiled at Dan and struck up a conversation with him as they left the ward.

I watched them go, then glanced up and noticed Elissa, Max and Vegan were all watching them with the same slightly bewildered look I’d had.

“You seem to have a thing for complete head cases,” Elissa commented softly, I nodded in agreement as Max and Vegan sniggered, nodding their own agreement.

I was in the hospital for a week, leaving on the Friday afternoon, meaning I was subjected to endless fussing and babying from pretty much everyone. Every day, when they came to see me on the dingy ward, each visit ended the same way. Dan would kiss my cheek as he hugged me goodbye, and Oli would just smile at him. I had started to find it a little unnerving.

When I limped back into school on Monday, Elissa and my friends at my side, the headmaster met us at the doors to the school. As it was a hate crime, and a brutal one at that, it had been decided that I was pressing charges.

Since I couldn’t remember enough to describe them, apart from the fact that they were fellow sixth formers, several police officers had come in and helped the headmaster round up all of the sixth form boys, apart from the ones I could rule out for certain, which were only really the ones at my side.

We followed the headmaster into the assembly hall, where they were all lined up, most of them scowling. There were at least six police officers scattered around the hall, making me slightly nervous. I already knew what those guys could do to me, so I was more than a little edgy at the thought of what they might do when I grassed on them.

The headmaster paced along the line, glaring at each boy in turn.

“Two weeks ago, someone in this room did something despicable. A group of young men ganged up on a classmate and beat him unconscious for no other reason than that they didn’t like his sexuality. I appealed to you all last week to come forward, but since you were all to cowardly to admit to it, or offer any information, he now has to face his attackers and ‘grass them up’ as you would put it,” he barked at them, and I found myself feeling slightly touched at the indignation he was feeling on my behalf.

He walked back over to me and gave me the nod to pick my attackers from the crowd, squeezing my shoulder in encouragement as I passed him. I walked slowly along the line, almost terrified to look at each face in case I had to point one out. I had only walked past six guys when a face brought several memories of the attack to the forefront of my mind with eye-watering clarity.

“Him. He was the one that first hit me,” I announced, turning to look at the headmaster and one of the officers, my arm still raised to point at him.

The headmaster opened his mouth to ask if I was sure, but his answer was immediately given when the guy in question tried to dive forward and grab me, but luckily, two officers had been standing either side of me the whole time, guarding me from possible attacks.

They grabbed hold of him before he even touched me, pulling him towards the doors as he screamed abuse at me. As soon as they left, two other officers took their place and I started moving down the line again. I sighed and rubbed my face. One down, eight to go.


	8. Chapter 8

I finally finished picking my attackers out during third period. I’d had to walk up and down the line about ten or eleven times, staring intently into each face, as my memory was so blurry. I managed to pick out five more, and the last three confessed without a fuss.

On their way out, one of them apologised, admitting that he hadn’t wanted to hurt me, as he had no problem with me, or gays in general, but was bullied into it by Mark, the older brother of the Year Seven, who’d planned the whole attack, and who’d been the only one who had really wanted to hurt me.

I could tell he was being optimistic and that really, he was the only one who _hadn’t_ wanted to hurt me. Since I could tell he really meant it, and really was remorseful, I insisted they let him go, as I wasn’t pressing charges against him.

We all had third period free that day, so we headed to the common room, Oli’s arm tightly wrapped around my waist the whole way there. I had a feeling that they wouldn’t be letting me go very far on my own for a while.

When we got to the common room, almost the entire sixth form was there, and the whole room went silent when we walked in. Well, when I walked in. Every eye in the room was on me, and I felt Oli tense beside me, his protective arm around my waist getting painfully tight.

“If you’ve got something to say, fucking say it!” He snarled to the room at large, and I noticed several people flinch.

From the back of the room, I noticed a guy in my History class, Sean Smith, stand from his chair and weave around the furniture until he was stood in front of us, a small smile on his face.

“I don’t think you’re a grass. It took a lot of guts to do that, and I’m glad you’re ok,” he told me quietly, then offered me a wide grin, and clapped me on the shoulder. He turned to go back to his friends, and noticed everyone still staring.

“Well? Either say something or mind your own damn business,” he barked, and everyone turned away, the noise level returning to normal. I gave him a grateful smile, which he returned with another of his wide grins; then he bounced away.

At the end of the day, Dan and the boys were waiting for us at the school gates. They used the excuse that we had band practice, which was true, but I knew they were just as paranoid as the others were, and I didn’t blame them, so I pretended to accept their reason.

The five of us had a shitty little band on the go, called You Me At Six. The others were still learning to play, and my voice wasn’t the best, but we thought we were good, so we kept practicing and playing occasional shows at local bars and pubs. We had a show at the Hand and Spear, a pub in Weybridge, on Saturday, so we were practicing every chance we got before then.

As we walked back to mine for practice, I noticed Max glancing at me every now and again with a confused look on his face. The next time he did it; I turned my head to look him in the eyes, and raised an eyebrow in question.

“So, I was wondering... When they attacked you, why didn’t your magic lash out at them to protect you? You know, the way it did at Oli that one time,” he asked, and I frowned as I mulled it over.

“You know, I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it. I guess it just... happened so fast, my magic didn’t get a chance to respond,” I finally replied, and he nodded, happy with my assumption. It made sense, really. I couldn’t help but wonder, though, what if it wasn’t?

When we got back to mine, I sent the others ahead of me to the basement, the only room in the house big enough and empty enough for us to practice in, while I went in search of my dad. When I found him, I jumped straight into it without preamble.

“Is there any reason my magic would stop working for a while?” I asked as soon as I found him, and he gaped at me for a few seconds; then pursed his lips as he thought about it.

“Uh... I guess... If you ingested enough Rowan berries, the poison would start to affect your magic too... But you know what those do to witches, so I know you wouldn’t... So, I don’t know,” he finally said, and my mind raced.

My thoughts first went to those who knew what I was, but I shook that away firmly. They wouldn’t. Then it struck me.

“The flairs I’ve been having at school. What if someone figured it out? What if someone’s been poisoning me?” I asked him, and he frowned.

“That... Seems plausible. I know your friends wouldn’t do that, so we can rule them out. I think, from now on, any time you eat at school, cast a spell to check for Rowan before you eat it. Don’t even touch it with your bare hands until your sure, just to be on the safe side,” he decided, and I nodded, whole-heartedly agreeing with him. The more I thought about it, the more plausible it seemed. Someone was poisoning me, and once I had cast a few spells on my lunch for a few days, once I had proof, I intended to find them and make them pay.

I headed down to the basement, and started practice, but my mind wasn’t on the songs, or maintaining the bouncy, mental movements I was known for on stage. I was focused entirely on one thought that ran through my head over and over.

Who knew my secret? And why were they poisoning me?


	9. Chapter 9

The next day was uneventful, until lunch time. The six of us sat at our usual table, but instead of sitting in my usual seat, I sat in Lee’s. This way, my back was to the room, and no-one would see what I was about to do. Instead of arguing, Lee simply shrugged and sat in my usual seat, for which I was extremely grateful.

I glanced around, just to be sure, and when I was certain that no-one was paying any attention to us, I started waving my hand over my tray, chanting softly under my breath. Most spells were non-verbal, so they were easier to cast without being detected, but this one was powerful, it needed as much concentration as possible, and the chant ensured focus.

It didn’t take long for the others to notice what I was doing, and they all started watching me with avid interest. I got to the end of the chant, and with a flick of my wrist and a flex of my fingers, the food on my tray, as well as the diet coke in my cup, flared red for a few seconds.

“I fucking knew it,” I mumbled; then glanced around at the other’s trays. Jordan just happened to have the exact same as me, so I looked up at him and motioned to my food. “Wanna swap?” I asked hopefully, and he bit his lip as he stared at it, almost as if he could still see the red glow. “It’s poisoned with Rowan berries. Toxic to me, completely harmless to you. It’s safe, I swear,” I told him, and he bit his lip harder, but still nodded, sliding his tray towards me as he pulled mine away from me.

“Someone’s poisoning you?” Nicholls asked softly, his worry evident in his voice as he eyed the tainted food.

I quickly explained my dad’s theory to them, and why exactly Rowan was poisonous to me, and when I was done, they all looked worried and sympathetic.

“You just can’t catch a break, can you?” Vegan asked softly, and I smiled ruefully.

“Look back over the history of witchcraft, and tell me when we’ve ever caught a break,” I retorted just as softly, and he snorted.

I thought I’d saved myself from being poisoned that day, but during last period, nature called. I was washing my hands in the boys’ room when I heard the door swing open; then creak shut. I thought nothing of it until I turned to leave, and a masked figure grabbed me by the throat, turning me around and slamming my back against the wall.

He forced my mouth open, then lifted a sports bottle and squirted a red liquid into my mouth. I started to gag as the bitter taste of Rowan flooded my mouth, but he continued squirting until the bottle was empty; then forced a small sprig of greenery into my mouth. It again had a bitter taste, but he held my mouth shut and forced me to chew and swallow it.

When I finally choked down the last of it, he let me go, but stopped a few steps away.

“Vervain. Can’t have you forcing that Rowan back up, can I?” He sneered, then turned and left as I silently cursed. He knew witches used Vervain in potions to ease nausea, so he had knowledge of witchcraft, but obviously wasn’t a witch himself, or he would’ve used a spell to speed up my digestion, making it impossible for me to vomit the Rowan out.

I staggered back to class and slumped into my seat between Jordan and Lee. They both turned to look at me, silently asking me if I was alright.

“Well, I know something about whoever’s poisoning me now,” I started in a whisper, and the others, who were in front of us, looked round in shock. Oli took one look at my clammy ashen face, and sighed.

“He got you when you when you went to the bathroom, didn’t he?” He asked softly, and I nodded, before explaining what happened.

“He’s about six foot five, deep voice and an Irish accent, but he could’ve altered his voice, so I’m not sure...” I finished, and they all nodded.

“Alright, there are thirteen students and four teachers in the school that are Irish, so we’ll keep an eye on them,” Vegan announced, and they all nodded in agreement, but then a thought struck me.

“Are any of the canteen workers Irish? That would make it really easy to poison my food...” I mused, and they all stared at me as comprehension dawned.

“I have no idea, but I intend to find out. And if there are, I think I might just start using my free periods to volunteer in the canteen,” Lee growled, and for the first time since I met him, I was slightly afraid of him.

When the last bell rang, we headed to the library, where we would skulk about and pretend to revise until the receptionists in the main office had left, then sneak in and break into the filing cabinets, to find out as much as possible about the canteen workers. Once again, Dan and the others were waiting at the gates, so I fired off a quick text to Chris, and they joined us in the library.

We were kicked out of the library when it closed at half four. The school was eerily quiet, so we figured it was safe. We crept as stealthily as we could down to the main office on the ground floor, and he denies it now, but I swear I heard Matt humming the Mission Impossible tune under his breath as we snuck down the stairs.

When we got there, the office was empty, and Oli swore quietly when he tried the door and found it locked. I scoffed and bumped my hip against his to get him to move, and with a simple flick of my wrist, the lock clicked and the door slowly swung open. The others walked past me into the office, and Matt grinned at me as he passed.

“You’re fuckin’ awesome, you know that?” He commented, and I laughed, playfully shoving his shoulder as I followed him into the office.

We found the files we were looking for quickly, but it turned out my epiphany had been wrong, there were three Welsh, one Scottish and about ten English canteen staff, but not a single one was Irish. It also listed each staff member’s height, and none of them were tall enough.

We left the office, and I locked the door behind us. The others hadn’t waited for me, so I started to jog to catch up to them, but I had barely taken five steps when someone grabbed me from behind, one hand gripping me around the waist, the other going straight to my mouth to stop me calling for help. Before I had a chance to struggle, someone else stepped in front of me and raised a baseball bat, swinging it at my head. I heard the sickening crack, but I didn’t get the chance to feel any pain before I lost consciousness. I only hoped the others noticed I was missing before it was too late.


	10. Chapter 10

When I woke up, it was a slow, lazy drift back into consciousness, that is, until my attackers realised I’d started to wake up, and something rammed into my gut. I choked and spluttered as I attempted to draw in a breath. Finally, my throat seemed to open up again, and I gasped in air greedily.

I finally let my eyes flicker open, and glanced around. I was tied to a chair in the middle of a warehouse. It was completely empty apart from me, my chair, the two masked men in front of me, and just behind them, a camera sat on a tripod, recording everything they did to me.

The one on my left stepped forward, ramming the crowbar into my gut again, ensuring I gave them my full attention again.

“So, Sabrina the teenage witch finally woke up,” the one on the right sneered, and I responded by spitting the blood that had gathered in my mouth at his feet. The blood was coming up my throat, and I knew it was from the blows to my gut. I knew I should be worried, but I was too focused on my terror of what they were going to do to me.

“Who are you?” I croaked, more blood trickling out of the corner of my mouth as I spoke.

“I don’t see how that’s important. What is important is that you’re a freak of nature that has to be eliminated,” the one with the crowbar snarled, and I recognised his voice. He was the one who’d cornered me in the bathroom.

As they continued to rant and rave about how freakish I was, I glanced down at the ropes binding my wrists to the arms of the chair. They had a reddish tint to them, and I had a sinking feeling as to what caused that tint, but I focused on the ropes anyway, channelling my magic in an attempt to loosen or even remove my bindings.

No matter how hard I tried, they wouldn’t budge, and I was just about to admit defeat, when a gloved hand swung into view, and my head snapped to the side as he backhanded me. I glared up at him, and I could almost hear his sneer.

“Such an ignorant little bitch. Here we are, trying to have a conversation with you, and you’re trying in vain to use magic on Rowan soaked ropes,” he snarled, and I felt my stomach drop as he confirmed my suspicions.

“You seemed rather interested in the camera earlier, so we were trying to tell you that it’s a live feed. Your precious little friends are watching every second of this. They’ll never find you, and they’re going to watch you die,” Crowbar Guy sneered, and I gulped. I held no illusions that the conviction in his voice was fake.

I looked towards the camera again, imagining my friends on the other end of the feed. I wondered how they were feeling, how they were holding up. They were stuck there, watching as I was taunted, blood dripping from my mouth in a steady stream. I could feel the dried blood from the head wound plastering my hair to my head and the side of my face.

These guys were about to do so much worse, and they were unable to do a single thing to help me. I tried to pour all my emotions into my eyes, to tell them that it was alright, that I’d be fine, but it felt like I wasn’t doing too well. I continued to try anyway, pouring all my thoughts and emotions into my eyes, until they started to water slightly, but my attempts were cut off abruptly as the guys in front of me picked up two baseball bats, one still stained with the blood from my head. One of them swung, and after that, all I knew was pain.

Somehow, I was still conscious when they stopped beating me. I was slumped forward in the chair, my head hanging limply. My entire body hurt, and breathing was excruciating. I could feel blood running and dripping from several places, one of which was the wound on my head, which had been split open again, and was pouring blood down the side of my face. I could hear the almost silent dripping as blood ran down my arm, dangled from my fingers for a few seconds, then dropped to the puddle already formed below.

The ropes around my wrists had split the skin below, and I could feel the Rowan seeping into my bloodstream through the break, my very veins burning from it. I was growing weak already, though whether it was from the Rowan or blood loss, I wasn’t sure. I knew they were far from done with me, though, so I forced my muscles to work, raising my head just enough to look at them.

One of them was over at the camera, adjusting the settings, it seemed, and the other had just approached me, standing on the other side of a table I hadn’t seen them set up in front of me. He placed a thick, rolled up strip of leather on the table; then spread it out. My fear spiked dramatically as I got a good look at its contents. Several blades were in there, in their own little compartments.

I recognised several of them, I could see a dagger; a fucking shiv, made of god only knew what; a serrated bread knife; a cleaver; a machete; a letter opener; a switch blade; and ironically, an athame, though I’m not sure if they realised what it was typically used for. Those weren’t the only ones, there were a lot more that I wasn’t familiar with.

He had been watching me as I inspected the blades in front of me, and when I looked up at him, I could see his lips curving into a smirk through his mask. He let his hand hover over each one before moving onto the next, watching my reactions to try to find one that truly terrified me. Unfortunately, they all terrified me, so he didn’t get the reactions he wanted.

Finally, he gave up, grabbing whichever one his happened to be hovering over. It turned out to be a short handled tool with a long, curved blade. As he made his way towards me, I began panicking even more, my breath coming in short pants. I felt something shift in my chest, then a sharp, blinding pain. My throat and mouth were full of torrents of blood, surging out constantly in a waterfall. I started coughing and choking; it felt like I was drowning. Black spots danced across my vision as he got even closer, and just as he got within striking distance, I slumped forward and lost consciousness.


	11. Chapter 11

When I woke next, I was assaulted with such a huge onslaught of pain, that I instantly began screaming. My head my hanging forward again, so I could see that my t-shirt had been cut from my body, and my torso and chest were a mangled, bloody mess. I couldn’t see the rest of my body, but it felt like it was in pretty much the same state. I could barely think through the pain, I could barely breathe through the blood still travelling up my throat, and I could feel something moving in my chest when I breathed, grating sickeningly against my skin.

I could hear them laughing, and I somehow managed to control my screams. I refused to let them know just how much pain I was in. I managed to lift my head, and found they were standing a little way back, watching me avidly like I was their favourite TV show. They’d moved the camera; it was now about a foot in front of me, the lens trained on my face. They wanted my friends to witness as much of my pain as possible.

I lost what little control of my muscles I had, and my head fell back, revealing the windows just below the ceiling to me. I heard my torturers leave the room, most likely to get something else to torment me with. My eyes darted from one window to the next, desperately searching for some sort of landmark, something to tell me where I was. My eyes moved so quickly that I almost missed it, but they went back, and... Yes! There it was.

I slowly forced my head back into an upright position, and I knew I looked frantic as my eyes flickered between the door and the camera. The door was closed and the record light on the camera was still blinking merrily. It took three tries before I’d cleared the blood from my throat enough to talk.

“I’m in a warehouse on the bank of the River Wey, I’m not sure where, but I can see Elstead Bridge. I’m a little downstream from the bridge, on the west bank, I think,” I told the camera, and hopefully my friends, in a hoarse whisper. I could just see the top of the bridge through the window, so I knew I was slightly downhill of it, but the rest was an estimated guess.

The door opened again, and I desperately hoped my friends had heard, and were sending someone. I didn’t know how much more I could take, or how much longer before they got bored and just killed me. I managed to look in their direction, and gulped. They had what looked like my weight in Rowan, both berries and liquid. This was going to be agony, and considering how much they’d already poisoned me, I didn’t know how much more my body could take.

An hour later, and I was starting to wish they’d just kill me already. They coupled every mouthful of Rowan with a sprig of Vervain. My stomach felt like it was about to burst, and I kept dry heaving, which did nothing but make the already unbearable pain even worse. They had stopped for now, muttering to each other, as though arguing over whether to continue or move on to something that would cause me more pain.

I was just about to give up and beg them to kill me, when the door burst open, and I heard the most amazing ever.

“Police! Get down on the ground, now!” A voice screamed; then the room was flooded with dozens of figures in hi-vis jackets.

Several of them swarmed around the two masked men, while the others started scoping the place for any other threats. It was a young officer who approached me, moving slowly, so as not to scare me. He dropped to a crouch in front of me and gently touched my knee.

“Josh? Can you hear me?” He spoke softly, gently, and the show of kindness brought tears to my eyes. I nodded to the best of my ability, and he motioned to someone to come over.

A few seconds later, a paramedic was crouching down on my other side, smiling reassuringly.

“Hi, Josh, my name’s Aled. Can you tell me where it hurts?” He asked softly, and I laughed, but it sounded like a strangled cough.

“Everywhere,” I wheezed, and he nodded, his eyes sympathetic.

“Where does it hurt most?” He tried, and it went on like this. I listed the worst affected areas, he asked me to describe how it hurt and the scale of the pain.

Finally, he seemed to have enough information to move me, and they slowly, gently removed the ropes from around my wrists and ankles. It took five paramedics ten minutes to safely transfer me from the chair to the stretcher, and as soon as I was on it, they strapped me into place and a needle was pushed into my arm. Just as they were lifting me into the ambulance, whatever was in the drip started working, and the pain was mercifully numbed. Reality seemed to fade with the pain, and although I was still conscious, everything was blurry and dreamlike. The paramedics talked to me the whole way to the hospital, but their voices where distant, it sounded like I was underwater.

I have vague memories of what happened next, some of it is just blurred colours, but there are a few flashes of bright, loud clarity. I remember getting to the hospital and hearing my mother sobbing, I remember hearing people clamouring and an obnoxious voice trying to order someone around, then Oli was there, leaning over the railings on the side of the stretcher, his face tear-stained and his eyes shining with love. I could see his mouth moving, but reality had begun to fade again, so his voice was just a muffled blur of noise.

After that, I just remember someone saying something about a stomach pump and surgery, then the slight sting of another needle being pushed into my arm, and everything went black.


	12. Chapter 12

My recovery was long and hard. I had seven broken bones, one of which was a rib that had punctured my left lung, which had been the cause of the blinding pain in my chest, and the blood that had almost choked me to death. They had also ripped open several organs with the array of blades I’d seen.

I spent three months in hospital, but I’d been allowed home a week for Christmas and my birthday, so it wasn’t too bad. When I finally went home for good, I was still on crutches, and couldn’t take more than a few steps at a time before getting out of breath and having to stop. The worst of the broken bones were in my left leg. My knee, femur and hip had been completely shattered, and the doctors had had to piece them back together with metal pins and plates. I was going to need months of painful physiotherapy, and despite that, I would have almost constant pain in that leg. To this day, I still need to use a cane when it gets cold.

I was in too much pain to go back to school when I finally left the hospital, so each day, my teachers would make up a packet of the work for me, and Oli brought them to me. He and Dan had announced when I came home that they were camping out at my house until I was back on my feet, which I wasn’t complaining about.

Oli and I got a lot closer during that time. Not sexually, since, you know, I could barely walk let alone have sex, but he wasn’t complaining about his forced celibacy, so I didn’t feel too guilty. We spent most afternoons playing twenty questions, and I found out things about him that surprised me. He had ADHD, not too bad, but enough that he struggled to concentrate more often than not; he had a dog, Oskar, who he adored; and he’d lost his virginity to Jordan when they were both sixteen, apparently, they were curious and decided to just bite the bullet and lose it to each other.

He found out that I wanted at least two dogs, but my parents kept putting it off; I hated the taste of broccoli, but still quite liked it ‘cause they looked like little trees. I was still a virgin, which surprised him, the first and last time Dan and I tried to do it, things got really awkward, and we ended up just laughing hysterically about the whole thing; and the band was the only career choice I had, there was absolutely nothing else I wanted to do with my life.

The first night I was home, the strangest thing happened. As agreed with my parents, Oli was sharing my bed with me and Dan was on the airbed on the floor. They’d both been asleep for hours, but even with enough pain-killers to knock out an elephant, I was wide awake. Something just didn’t feel right, and it was causing me to toss and turn as carefully as I could.

I turned back over to face the door, and I had an idea. I grabbed one of my crutches from beside the bed, and gently poked Dan’s shoulder with it a few times.

“Psst, Dan! Dan, wake up!” I whispered, and after a few times, he sat up, his eyes bleary.

“Wassa matter? You alright J?” He mumbled, and as he woke up further, I could see him getting worried.

“Can’t sleep, come and lie with me?” I asked softly, and he frowned in confusion.

“But Oli’s already there,” he stated, and I sighed.

“I know, but I want you to lie with me as well,” I told him, and he nodded, then crawled sleepily over to the bed, hauling himself up until he was stretched out beside me.

“Better?” He asked softly as his arm wound around my waist with Oli’s.

“Much,” I mumbled as I finally started to feel sleepy. I buried my face into his shoulder and instantly fell asleep.

Every night after was the same, I’d toss and turn until Dan crawled in with us. After three nights, Dan just deflated the airbed and got straight into my bed with us every night. It just felt _right_ with both of them lying either side of me, and I really didn’t know what to make of that.

Another thing that happened almost as soon as I got home, was that an all out war broke out in the family. Dad and Elissa wanted us all to go underground, while mum and I wanted to stay, proudly hold our heads high and refuse to be beaten. About a week after I got home, I was sitting on my bedroom floor, my legs spread out in front of me with a pot simmering in the V between them. I was just adding the asafoetida when Oli and Dan walked in, both stopping dead as the stench of the asafoetida hit them.

“What the fuck is that?” Dan choked out, heading straight to the window to dispel the stench, but I grabbed his calf as he passed.

“Don’t. The cold air will ruin it,” I told him, then grabbed the tub beside me and handed it to him. He inspected it for a moment, then frowned.

“VapoRub? Why d’you give me this?” He asked, and I smiled as I methodically stirred it three times clockwise, three times anti-clockwise, then a quarter turn anti-clockwise with one hand, while I readied the powdered caraway with the other, it had to go in exactly thirteen and three quarter turns after the asafoetida.

“Spread some under your nose, it’ll help with the smell,” I told him, and he complied, then passed it to Oli, who did the same.

They sat down on either side of me as I gently added the caraway, both looking at me in a way I knew meant they wanted to talk to me about something they thought might upset me.

“So, um... Your parents are fighting again,” Dan told me softly, and I nodded as I adjusted the magical fire below the pot, then reached over for the fennel seeds and a small knife. I hadn’t prepared those yet, since the potion needed to simmer for a few minutes first.

“Yeah, I heard them when you came in,” I replied stoically as I began partially splitting each of the large seeds with the knife.

I wasn’t sure where this was going, but they both seemed nervous, so I was starting to get a little worried.

“They keep mentioning something about ‘going underground’, and I heard you and Elissa talking about that the other day, too. You’re thinking about going into hiding, aren’t you?” Oli asked softly, and I smiled sadly and nodded, beginning to add the seeds one at a time.

“But where would you go? With CCTV all over the place now...” Dan trailed off sadly, and I scoffed, but not unkindly.

“When we say ‘go underground’, it’s not a metaphor, Dan,” I told him gently, and they both gaped at me.

“You’d literally live underground? But what...? How...?” Oli stammered, and I smiled.

I explained how my ancestors had been forced to live underground to survive, how they’d hollowed out sections of hills, and even mountains in some cases. So many generations had lived there that once inside, it didn’t even resemble a hill anymore. The walls had been hewn to perfection, ancient tapestries and art brought colour, they looked like any other houses, just with no windows or electricity. The torches on the walls gave light, and the rock that made up the walls was so thick that it was never cold, and somewhere along the line, they’d managed to provide running water to most of the houses.

By the time I was done explaining, the potion was the sunflower yellow it was supposed to be, and I wiped the VapoRub from under my nose to smell it. It had a light, aniseed smell to it, and I smiled. Perfect. I poured it into the waiting medicine bottle, and handed it to Oli.

“Give it a while to cool; then take some. You’ll need to take it twice a day for it to work,” I told him, and he examined it with curiosity. “It’s for your ADHD. It won’t cure it completely, but it’ll help,” I told him softly, and he smiled in thanks.

We were quiet for a few minutes while I cleaned out the pot and readied it for the next potion. Flu season was approaching fast and I wanted to make sure everyone I cared about had taken the preventive potion before it hit. Finally, Dan cleared his throat.

“So, your family has one of these underground houses? You could vanish, if you wanted to?” He asked softly, and I nodded.

“It’s somewhere in Wales, it’s been in the family since 397 BC, when my ancestor, Gwanwyn, was forced underground with her infant son. The villagers had found out they were witches, and they’d killed her husband and her five older children. They thought they got her and Adda too, but she fled out of a back window before the fire really took hold, then she hid in the woods until she got a chance to make the house. They both lived out the rest of their days in that house, and when the time came, Adda’s wife and children lived there too,” I told them both, and Dan seemed awed.

“How can you know so much about them?” He whispered, and I smiled, tapping my temple.

“I dream about them. I relive their last moments, or times when they came close to death, in my dreams. I see it through their eyes, feel everything they felt...” They both gaped at me as I trailed off with a small smile. It seemed horrible, but I felt close to them, to my heritage and my magic when I dreamed of them.

I didn’t want to go underground, didn’t want to leave Oli and Dan and all the others behind, but it seemed more and more likely that it was going to be our only choice.


	13. Chapter 13

The weeks seemed to fly past after that, and before I knew it, seven months had gone by. It was now late August; I was finally finished with physiotherapy, and walked with only a slight limp. We had finally come to a decision a week earlier. We were officially going underground.

I was now packing up my room. We didn’t need most of the furniture, as the house we were going to had been furnished for more than two millennia, but I was taking my bed. I’d had a special orthopaedic mattress made, and sleeping in any other bed just caused me too much pain.

I glanced over my shoulder to the bed in question, where Oli, Dan, Jordan, Vegan, Lee, Chris and Max currently sat, giving me heartbroken and devastated looks. I hadn’t gotten round to telling any of my friends about the decision yet, so when they’d turned up unannounced half an hour ago, only to find the house half packed, they’d put two and two together. Though I could tell how much it hurt them to see me go, none of them had said a word, knowing how much safer it would be for us.

They also knew that I was still deeply traumatised by what had happened, especially Oli and Dan, who’d been the ones to wake me from my nightmares, letting me sob and scream into their shoulders long into the night almost every night for the last seven months. I’d admitted to all of them that I didn’t feel safe anywhere any more, looking over my shoulder constantly, even in my own home. They knew I’d finally feel safe underground, where no one could find us, or hurt us.

Finally, it was Vegan who broke the silence.

“When d’you leave?” He asked softly, and I turned to look at them again.

“Sunday night. It’s the night of the new moon, so it’ll be almost completely pitch black, so we’ll be able to move without detection,” I told them, and Chris nodded decisively.

“Right, we’ll be spending as much time together as possible before then. God only knows how long it’ll be before we see you again, so we’re making as many new memories as we possibly can before you go,” he announced, and the others nodded. I smiled sadly and went over to Chris, pulling him into the tightest hug I could manage. They’d never know how much their support meant to me right then.

Jordan had texted the others the moment they’d realised what was going on, so it wasn’t long before they got there too. We spent the rest of the day hanging out at the skate park and messing around in Endcliffe Park.

They spent the rest of the week with me. We’d hang out in our usual haunts during the day, sometimes venturing to other places, acting like idiots and generally being nuisances. At night, we’d all go back to mine and do the usual sleepover stuff.

Sunday came faster than I’d have liked. I spent the whole day packing up the rest of my stuff, the essentials that were needed until the very last minute. It wasn’t as easy as it should’ve been, since the others seemed to be taking turns at hugging me for fifteen minutes straight, hanging off me as I limped around, refusing to let go of me for any reason.

At exactly midnight, we were ready to leave. The moon was almost non-existent, like we needed it to be, and there was almost no stars. I watched my parents packing the car for a few minutes, overly aware of the bodies directly behind me, and the fact that I had no idea what to say to them.

Finally, I decided to just turn to them and say the first thing that came to mind, but as I turned, I was pulled into a bear hug by Chris, and my mouth was suddenly full of his hair. When he finally let me go, I looked around at them all, biting my lip as I tried to think of something, anything, to say to them.

They saved me the trouble, taking turns to hug me again, whispering their own goodbyes, giving me the chance to simply reply in kind, until it was Oli’s turn. Before he got the chance to say anything, I blurted what I’d being trying to get the guts to say all week.

“Don’t wait for me. If you get the chance to love someone else, you grab it as tight as you can, you run with it and don’t you dare look back,” I whispered to him, clinging to his back as I breathed in his smell for what might be the last time. I could feel his shoulders shaking, and a second later, I felt his tears soaking my t-shirt.

“I don’t want to,” he whispered back hoarsely. “It’s the last thing I want to do, but I will, because I know you’ll never forgive me if I don’t,” he told me, and I nodded, looking sternly into his eyes as he moved back.

“Damn right I won’t,” I told him, and he gave me a watery smile.

The last goodbye was the worst. Instead of coming straight over to hug me, Dan just stood there, tears in his eyes and an almost lost look on his face.

“What am I supposed to do without you? We’ve been best friends since we were three. How the fuck am I supposed to cope without you now?” He asked softly, and I felt my heart break. This was my best friend. He’d been there through everything. My oldest memory was of Dan, and there were very, very few since then that he wasn’t a part of.

I rushed to him as fast as my gammy leg would allow, and pulled him into the tightest hug I could manage.

“I know, trust me, I know. But hey, at least you’ll have this lot. I’m stuck with no one but Elissa for company for god knows how long,” I joked, and it wasn’t until I heard my own watery laugh that I even realised I was crying.

When the two of us finally pulled away, my dad waved to me, my signal to leave.

“Guess I’d better go. Probably a good thing, we were about to turn into a bunch of girls at any minute,” I told them, and with a final group hug, I got into the car beside Elissa, and I didn’t stop staring at each of their faces until they were out of sight.


End file.
